Health Care Whimper

In following the 'health care reform debate' that's been raging in the halls of Congress over the past few months, it's occurred to me that, short of the lead-up to the Iraq War, there hasn't been an issue which has illustrated as starkly everything that is wrong and dysfunctional about American society and government. The stated aim of altering the health care system for the benefit of the majority of the nation's citizens has mutated into yet another gigantic package of corporate welfare, with just enough ineffective government dictates to give conservatives a straw-man to flog for decades to come.

The thing that has really annoyed me from day one is that people seem to think it appropriate to talk about reforming the “health care system”. This is odd when we don't have a health care system. We have a health care market. If you have enough money you can purchase some of the best health care in the world, if you don't you can go crawl in a gutter and die. (or go to an overcrowded emergency room, be billed thousands of dollars and not pay) Other advanced, developed nations have health care systems, wherein the society as a whole has decided that health care is a human right, as well as a pragmatic step in maintaining a healthy society, and figured out a way to provide it to everyone, free or at a reasonable cost. There are numerous examples of these health care systems. In Britain the government directly employs doctors, runs hospitals and purchases drugs (the dreaded 'Socialized Medicine'). In Canada, those functions are carried out by private entities, but the government provides comprehensive health insurance to all citizens (Something you might have heard about for a week or so before the insurance companies 'convinced' the politicians it was no good, Single Payer). In some continental European nations people are given tax rebates to pay for coverage from a selection of non-profit health insurance providers. All of these countries ranked higher on an overall health outcomes survey done by the United Nations in 2000 than the U.S, which came in 37th, right between Costa Rica and Slovenia. Well, maybe we don't have a health care system to reform, but thank goodness the populist Democratic Party is in control. They'll certainly get us a health care system.

Well, of course they'd like to, but if they can't get sixty votes, the Republicans might filibuster and all would be lost. So, in order to prevent a potential republican filibuster, the Democrats have used the tactic of preemptively caving to the most extreme demands of the Republicans before they even try to do anything constructive. It's funny, but the last president did a lot of things that the Democrats could have filibustered. They never did though. Of course the operative thing is that the health insurance companies (hereafter to be referred to as 'murderers') have lots of money to give to lobbyists, who give it to people like, Max Baucus and Joe Lieberman, even if they might be in a party that talks a bunch of commie nonsense during the election campaigns. So, before our health care system was ever really honestly discussed it has become pretty much a government demand that you buy insurance from the murderers, who've promised to cut costs a little at some point, or enroll in a tiny government program that's been designed to fail because it (if it doesn't get cut out of the bill completely) will have no bargaining power and will be the option of last resort for people who the murderers decide they can't cover.

Basically our government is controlled by a party of laissez fair capitalists to whom it's more important that the murderers be able to make huge profits than for the American people to be able to afford health care, and a party that claims to care about the latter, until they actually control the government and are up for their share of the murderers' thinly disguised bribery. Apparently, roughly half of the ordinary people in the country are so caught up in jerking off to a fantasy of Ronald Reagan tossing Ayn Rand's salad that they're afraid of such horrors as the government providing them with health care. Well, thanks guys. When this piece of shit legislation is passed and another thirty thousand or so Americans die for lack of medical coverage you can all give yourselves a hand for preserving the wonderful American health care system from socialist attack.

Obama Escalates/ Ends Afghan War Boo/Hooray

Just over eight years into the U.S. Involvement in Afghanistan, Barack Obama has finally made his mark on the conflict. In typical Obama style, he made a speech, explaining in calm measured tones why he is choosing a course of action half-assed enough to be completely ineffective yet shockingly offensive to all of the nice liberals who voted for him. I mean really...30,000 more troops. If you're against the war, that sure isn't a withdrawal, and if you want to stick it out until victory, it seems pretty wimpy. At least it's an effort though. And if you're one of those anti-war sissies, don't worry, he's going to pull them all out a few months after they get there, just in time for the next election. Forget the whole, ugly thing.

In fairness, it is a complex issue; and a situation where the stakes are none less than the deaths thousands. It would be understandable if one thought we'd already won in Afghanistan, having deposed the Taliban from its leadership role and overseen two elections, which were corrupt and all, but at least saw our guy beating our other guys. Unfortunately, we never did capture or kill Bin Laden, and the Taliban are still more popular than we'd like them to be, and still trying to kill our soldiers. It seems like a reasonable assumption that if we were to pull out now, Karzai's government might fall to the Taliban, and even if it didn't, it certainly isn't powerful enough to prevent unpleasant types from planning more attacks on America out in the sticks. In light of all this, after careful consideration, the Obama administration is going to take measured action and send an additional 30,000 troops, who will mostly be operating in the silly sounding, but very serious Pashtunistan. Greater emphasis will be placed on training more soldiers for the fledgling (read: “Completely useless, and sometimes hostile”) Afghan Army. Well, it isn't going to work.

We need up our troop levels to a solid 200,000. None of this post-Vietnam syndrome, war can be easy crap. I mean, we've been there for the better part of a decade and we've only killed roughly 20,000 people, with around a thousand American deaths. The Taliban must be laughing their asses off. If we want to put the fuckers in line we might as well go all out, with all our expensive technology I'm sure we can knock of a million and a half of them in no time. So where's the carpet bombing, god damn it? Drain the swamp! And quit worrying about civilian casualties. Hell, they're all Muslims right? Some of them might seem friendly enough now, but we run over one of their goats with a Humvee and they're having an Al Qaeda meeting in their back yard the next day. We should make indiscriminate use of chemical weapons, bulldoze their farmland and plant thousands and thousands of land mines in every godforsaken corner of the country. Half of the population should be made refugees. And look, if you want to accomplish big things like erasing the Taliban and Al Qaeda (and anyone who might sympathize with them) from existence you've got to be willing to make sacrifices. Let's resolve not to leave until our casualties have increased ten-fold or so.

Obama always said in the campaign that this was a necessary war, so why doesn't he act like it is. If he'd just get behind a good bloodbath, some real total war, the conservatives would finally respect him, and his liberal fans would only be a little more pissed off than they will be about the 30,000 man drop in the bucket he's planning now. Besides, they'll forget all about it by the next election, and what other party are they going to vote for anyway. The Green Party? They know they'd only be throwing their votes away. So come on, Obama, it's bipartisanship. It's your big thing. You do what the people who count want you to do and ignore all of the other poor schlubs. You didn't have any problem doing it when it came to health care reform. So why not with the Afghan War? Wouldn't it be nice to really win a damn war for a change?

Well, I'm sure I've convinced you. Unfortunately, I was only playing devil's advocate. Because even if we were cruel enough to do all that I've suggested, we would never succeed in determining what kind of place Afghanistan will be in the future. You see, all of the numbers I've suggested are straight from the casualty numbers and troop levels of the Soviet/ Afghan war. Pretty brutal stuff. If that's what it would take to win, I'm not even sure the Republicans would get behind it (oh, whom am I kidding? They would eat it up). The Soviets didn't try to make Afghanistan a Communist state with 90,000 troops on the ground. They went all out. And they still didn't prevail. Our friends, the freedom fighters of the Mujahadeen did, as we now know all too well.

Maybe it would be good idea to seriously consider how far we would be willing to go in order to make Afghanistan democratic and free of any type of holy warrior. Maybe if he did Obama wouldn't bother sending another 30,000 to die just to look tough to his critics. I wouldn't hold my breath though.